Whether the Greek was ‘sloppy’, ‘outstanding’, or somewhere in between isn’t all that important.  An example:
One author writes:  I’ve recently received an epistle from my mother’s younger brother, a man of whom I am most fond.
Another writes:  Got a letter from me uncle yesterday.  I likes uncle Jeff!
One may be written in more sophisticated and gramatically correct English than the other, but both communicate clearly, and neither, in terms of the context in which they would likely be communicated, contain errors.  (In fact, the ‘inferior’ English example contains more information than the ‘superior’ one.)
Bob

In regards to Michael Bull’s comment:

The events in Genesis 2 are history, and they are arranged to follow the pattern of Creation in chapter 1. So, they are history, but like much of the Bible, are arranged chiastically so that the central point or ‘thesis’ is at the centre.

Does this in any way impact the original question of why the sequence of events differ comparing Gen 1 to Gen 2?

I’ll put together a short outline later today. Would be beneficial for me to back up my wild claims.

Bob, your two examples there are in widely different registers, however the second also has some non-standard grammar. If it’s like this in the Bible, well I’d be interested to find that out cause I haven’t ever heard someone say it. I would guess the Greek is more like a comparison between your first sentence and “Got a letter from my uncle yesterday.  I like uncle Jeff!”, ie, neither is incorrect or errant but there is a largely different style.

Dannii Willis - 04 July 2008 01:57 PM

Bob, your two examples there are in widely different registers, however the second also has some non-standard grammar. If it’s like this in the Bible, well I’d be interested to find that out cause I haven’t ever heard someone say it. I would guess the Greek is more like a comparison between your first sentence and “Got a letter from my uncle yesterday.  I like uncle Jeff!”, ie, neither is incorrect or errant but there is a largely different style.

Well Dannii, I was actually arguing FOR your case, but if you want to prove me wrong, I’m okay with that! :-)

The point of the second example is that, in a particular environment where that is how people speak, it would not be “incorrect or errant”.  [I’m not advocating such use, by the way, only acknowledging that it exists and can communicate accurately.] So, returning to Greek, the categories of ‘sloppy’ and ‘outstanding’ are only relevant if they mean ‘unclear’ (in the first case) and ‘perfectly clear’ (in the second case).

Like you, I don’t accept that the Greek of the New Testament, with all its variety, can be categorised in such terms.  It does have, however, irregularities like ‘asyndeton’ (missing conjunction where the rules of grammar would require one) and ‘hapax legomena’ (words found only once in the written language).  But in my view these and other such features make the Greek not sloppy but colloquial and idiomatic.  Others with far more expertise than I would argue the same.  [Oops! I mean “in the same way”.  Sorry for my sloppy English.]

Bob

PS I’m not familiar with the term ‘register’ as you’ve used it.  Can you fill me in?

Ahh, these asyndeton irregularities, are they compared to other Greek writings of the same time, or compared to the earlier Greek writings?

Wikipedia on register
That’s probably got more than you’ll ever want to know ;)

Thanks Dannii!

Hi Bob
The term ‘register’ is something I came across when I was doing my linguistics subjects. According to the wikipedia post on register that Dannii mentions above, it says “In linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting.”. Later it mentions the concepts of field, tenor and mode: “Halliday (1964) identifies three variables that determine register: field (the subject matter of the discourse), tenor (the participants and their relationships) and mode (the channel of communication, e.g. spoken or written).”.

rgds

OK people, here’s the reason for the order of events in Genesis 2. I hope you have your thinking caps on.

Creation week with feasts (Lev 23) and Tabernacle (Ex 25-31)

Day 1 - Light - Sabbath - Ark

Day 2 - Firmament - Passover - Veils

Day 3 - Land and Grain & Fruit Plants - Firstfruits - Altar & Table

Day 4 - Governing Lights - Pentecost - Lampstand

Day 5 - Birds and Fish (swarms/clouds/armies) - Trumpets - Incense

Day 6 - Land animals and Man - Atonement - Sacrifices & Priesthood via Laver

Day 7 - Rest - Booths - Expanding dominion

These patterns in the Exodus

Notice that Moses went through this pattern personally before taking the Hebrews through it. The Lord tried to kill Moses’ firstborn son at the Passover step.

Sabbath - Moses (prime mover)
Passover - Exodus of a people (death) water
Firstfruits - Aaron/Tabernacle Law
Pentecost - Testing
Trumpets - Mustering of an army Law repeated (Deut)
Atonement - Jordan and Jericho (resurrection) water
Booths - Promised Land

With that background (or foreground), Genesis 2 has two of these cycles:

Sabbath - face of the ground (deep)
Passover - man’s “exodus” from the dust (death)
Firstfruits - God planted a garden and put man in it
Pentecost - the tree of life (priest) and
Trumpets - tree of wisdom (king), two pillars
Atonement - four rivers (as Jordan) (resurrection)
Booths - God put man in Eden to keep (protect) it

Sabbath - God’s word to Adam (prime mover)
Passover - a warning of death (death)
Firstfruits - a marriage covenant Law
Pentecost - birds and beasts (later become covenant curses)
Trumpets - God brings them to Adam and they submit Law
Atonement - Adam is ‘divided’ and Eve is (lit.) built (resurrection of Eve)
Booths - They are united in the garden

Great pattern of Gen 1-3

Sabbath - Adam is anointed to reflect the image of God

Passover - Adam is divided and his counterpart is built

Firstfruits - Adam and Eve are united by covenant Law

Pentecost - Adam’s priesthood is tested. Would he repeat God’s Law to his congregation of one? Would he keep the sanctuary pure? Would he qualify to expand his Dominion to the outlying lands?

Trumpets - Adam sells his glorious robe of maturity by trying to seize it rather than receive it through obedience. He blames both the Lord and Eve, who blames the serpent Law

Atonement - They have modelled themselves after a beast, rather than imaging God. Animal blood covers their sin as animal skins cover their nakedness. At this step, they are on the wrong side of the sword. With blood shed at the door, Adam is driven through the “veil” and enters the promised land without God. Fellowship with God without a sacrifice is denied

Booths - Adam’s cursed dominion is expanded by his children

Greater pattern of Adam to Noah

Dominion planned over the world in Adam

Sabbath - The Spirit hovers over the deep. The Land appears out of the water. The animals are brought to Adam. Judgment comes to Adam after seven days

Passover - Adam brings spiritual death on Day 14. Animals are killed to cover his sin

Firstfruits - Seth and Enoch bring the Law as faithful priests. Enoch ascends to God

Pentecost - The woman’s and serpent’s offspring intermarry. There is a harvest of bloodshed. Instead of a holy “Eve-army”, there are bloodthirsty warriors.

Trumpets - Noah repeats the Law. The ark is built. The animals are brought to Noah and they submit to him

Atonement - Noah’s family is “resurrected” behind the door, separated as an ascension. Sinners are condemned and go to destruction.

Booths - Judgment comes after seven days. The Land disappears under water. The dove hovers over the deep and the ark rests on the mountain (Noah means ‘rest’)

Dominion over the new world in Noah commanded

and one for the road:

Sabbath - Genesis
Passover - Exodus
Firstfruits - Leviticus
Pentecost - Numbers
Trumpets - Deuteronomy
Atonement - Joshua
Booths - Judges

Welcome to the DNA of the Bible. Ain’t no junk DNA here either.

Where did you get this stuff Michael?  I’m either far narrower in my reading than I ever suspected, or this is pretty ‘out there’.

EG: What on earth?

Sabbath - face of the ground (deep)

???

Passover - man’s “exodus” from the dust (death)

-That one’s a particular stretch!

Firstfruits - God planted a garden and put man in it

-firstfruits are law and a garden and land and grain and marriage and Seth and Enoch and Leviticus? Is this from something more definitive in the Hebrew, because I’m just not getting how all this imagery is meant to link up.

Either there is something in the Hebrew that no minister has ever explained to me in any sermon I’ve ever had on the Mosaic books EVER, or this is some weird stuff mate.

Does this ring any bells for Dannii, Bob, or anyone else?

Dave Lankshear - 04 July 2008 05:50 PM

Either there is something in the Hebrew that no minister has ever explained to me in any sermon I’ve ever had on the Mosaic books EVER, or this is some weird stuff mate.

Does this ring any bells for Dannii, Bob, or anyone else?

Not me.  I couldn’t really take it in as the connections were not at all self-evident.  I clearly don’t have the same interpretive framework that Michael does, so I simply couldn’t process what he was saying.

I would make the point, though, that this kind of handling of the Bible seems to me to cut across the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture!

Bob

I have heard that the various Jewish feasts were an analogy for something, probably Jesus’ last days, and I think that’s quite legit as he was killed around passover and the spirit came at pentecost. I’ve never seen it applied to absolutely everything though!

Either there is something in the Hebrew that no minister has ever explained to me in any sermon I’ve ever had on the Mosaic books EVER, or this is some weird stuff mate.

Fair points on all counts. It becomes more apparent as the pattern is replayed over and over and over again throughout the Bible, culminating in the NT. By that stage we have seen each step played out in many facets, fulfilled in Christ. It takes a while to get a handle on, but I can assure you, it works like clockwork.

On the Firstfruits point, it is the Ascension/Covenant step. It is Adam, Enoch, Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Daniel, Christ ascending as head of the body. Then comes testing in the wilderness, maturity (if testing is passed), a resurrection of Eve (the body) through water, and finally a homecoming (Booths/Tabernacles) and a feast with the bride. The sacrifice pattern in Lev 1 follows it (head then body).

Every time the covenant is renewed, it follows this pattern, culminating in the deep structure of Revelation (ascension of Christ in ch 4-5).

Michael, there’s no way I’m buying the Eve as body thing. There’s links here that I don’t see clearly explained anywhere in the bible.

We have types and shadows in the OT that are fulfilled in the NT – and the NT explains these types and shadows clearly. But I don’t see the bible expounding any of your links above clearly. I may as well get into Barbara Thiering’s “Pescher method”.

My parents and I have both been listening to your guy on Revelations… and he has a similar style. Some of his thoughts are interesting, but generally I find myself asking… “Really mate, are you ever going to give us any EVIDENCE that Revelation XYZ relates to Solomon doing ABC?” Just because this guy states it doesn’t mean it is so… and I don’t (generally) like his preaching style because he just treats his own words as more important than scripture… he said these two apparently unrelated verses relate, so it is SO!

(EG The beast’s mark of 666 relating to King Solomon).

I need more.

Fair enough - again.

Eve is to Adam as the church is to Christ. She is the body, “awesome as an army with banners.”

You are brave continuing with those lectures. I had similar questions on Jordan, but 90%+ of the time what he says, no matter how odd it sounded the first time, plays out elsewhere many times. The patterns are repeated.

What would the first century hearers have related to 666? Solomon’s breaking of the three laws God made for Israel’s king. He broke all three, but it was amassing gold that started the corruption. He began seizing glory and honours that he wasn’t ready for, and started to oppress the people - like Pharaoh.

NT - corrupt king of Israel, oppression of the church, spiritual compromise, glorious temple that would be destroyed. Sounds like the Herods to me. And the name calling starts - Egypt, Sodom, Babylon…

Thanks for the replies to the crazy assertions. Here’s another one. I thought it was strange that the beasts from the Sea in Daniel are actually LAND animals, empires that carried Israel through the age of empires. This made me think that Israel’s history follows the Creation pattern:

[WARNING: The following chart contains mild preterism and implied violence]

Day 1 Light
Patriarchs - Abraham (Sabbath)
Light dawned upon the “waters” of the 70 nations.

Day 2 Waters Above & Below
Exodus - Moses (Passover)
Israel was separated (slain and resurrected) to mediate for the world.

Day 3 Dry Land, Grain & Fruit
Promised Land - Joshua (Firstfruits)
Israel ‘ascended’ to the Land and sat by God’s throne as Judges

Day 4 Governing Lights
Kings - David & Solomon (Pentecost)
The transfigured king failed. God’s throne was rejected.

Day 5 Birds & Fish
Captivity - Armies (Trumpets)
The “birds and fish” swarms were eagles (Nebuchadnezzar) and sea monsters (Assyria and Babylon).

Day 6 Land Animals & the Mediator, Man
Restoration - Joshua the high priest Atonement (covering)
The dominion of the four land beasts who covered Israel was given to the Son of Man. ‘Eve’ was resurrected by crossing the sea and was brought to God. (Then the Roman ark/beast was no longer needed.)

Day 7 Rest & Ruling
Redemption - Jesus Booths (“Clouds”) (ingathering)
Adam rested at the right hand of the Father as Transfigured King. He received His transfigured Eve-people at the first resurrection in AD70, and the marriage supper followed. The second resurrection is yet to come.

Far from your presenting Genesis 1 and 2 as literally true, your ‘list’ method appears to be turning the WHOLE bible into one huge metaphor for various strange lists… and the lists are where the ‘real’ meaning is at, not the actual events. That totally confuses me… because I KNOW you’re a YEC.

You know I’m a ‘liberal heretic moronic idiot science-worshipper’ (according to the gracious creationists over at SydneyAnglicanHeretics bloggers anyway) yet even a TE (Theistic Evolutionist) such as myself is starting to feel a little freaked out with how metaphorical you’re coming across. It’s like the whole bible is being squished into one big metaphor for some strange list I’ve never even heard of, and the historical bits happened just to ‘illustrate’ this list.

To be honest mate, I just can’t follow these lists.